Going to college is already a big (and, quite frankly, complicated) change for everyone. For many, it involves living in a new city, having to re-experience the process of making friends, and, yeah, there’s homework. Lots and lots of homework. All these factors can make it a difficult change for many students, but being a student living with CF has added some more interesting factors.
I’m going to start by saying I’m “lucky” enough that my CF is very mild, and it doesn’t cause too many health issues. Sure, I do have to pay a little more attention than the average student when cold and flu season comes around, but I’ve been able to live my life pretty “normally” so far. However, CF has still affected my time in college in multiple ways.
The first way CF has affected my college experience is through the inconvenience and added task of taking my medication. For a little background on my CF experience, I was diagnosed with CF a few weeks before the start of third grade. With my diagnosis, came the medication. From my diagnosis up to about my junior year of high school, I did the typical vest and nebulizer treatments. Twice a day, including getting up at 6 a.m. before school, to ensure I got the medicine I needed. As my college decision drew nearer, my parents and I agreed to try Kalydeco, as taking a pill twice a day was infinitely easier than having to take my nebs up to campus (I probably would have annoyed my dorm neighbors with the noise every day).
Kalydeco has worked great, but it’s still annoying to have to remember when to take my meds, especially at night when I’m typically hanging out with friends and access to the food I’m supposed to take the meds with isn’t always available. However, I’m still VERY grateful I don’t have to worry about the larger task of nebs and a vest anymore.
The second way CF has affected my college life is by motivating me to become more interested in what CF is — even to the point where I’ve started advocating for it and educating people about it. This may not seem directly related to college, but I feel that growing up and learning about yourself is a big part of the college experience.
My high school graduating class consisted of only about 70 people, and pretty much everyone in my class knew I had CF. But I didn’t do much to tell people about what it was. Since I’ve been at college, I’ve found a lot more people asking more detailed questions about my CF, which has led me to do more research on my own. Communicating to others about my CF is still something I’m working on but, at the same time, I greatly appreciate anyone who asks about it.
CF is a big part of my life and it's increasingly becoming a part of my identity. Sure, I’ve always known I had CF, but it wasn’t really something that I considered part of myself.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized just how much of an impact CF has had on my life. There are all the health effects I deal with, and I’m aware that I’m going to have to get very familiar with everyone’s favorite part of illness — health insurance. But CF has found its way into influencing something I had never suspected — my college major and career.
I’m majoring in broadcast and multimedia journalism with a minor in sports communication, and I hope to one day become a national sports reporter. I’ve always loved sports, so it didn’t take long to know I wanted to work in sports. I ultimately decided I wanted to become a sports journalist. It wasn’t until recently that I realized my first exposure to sports media was during my daily routine before school when I would watch ESPN while doing my meds. If I didn’t have CF, it’s likely my brother would’ve gotten to the TV first every morning (I enjoy sleeping in), which means I might not have gotten the sports journalism influence that I did. Without those mornings, who knows if I would have decided to go into sports media. After this realization, I decided to pay closer attention to CF’s role in my life.
Writing this blog post is the first step I’ve taken to becoming more active in the CF community, and I’m certainly hoping to do more outreach in the future. Living with CF in college is a different experience, and obviously, each person’s experience is different, but I hope I did a good job of giving insight into what CF in college can look like.
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